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Chapter 1.1.1 Capture

… but we still became the prey! We didn’t belong here, not in this place, and certainly not in this time. The whole experience was surreal, and not least because we were outsiders. It wasn’t like we didn’t resist, we did. But we were fools to think we stood a chance against this class of capasians. Even today, that face haunts me. Those piercing hazel eyes, that uncanny and hypnotic glare, but above all, his unworldly ability to reduce me to a weeping, cowering and pathetic infant!

It took me awhile to open my heavy eyelids but more time still to focus through the fog clouding my senses. The sky was still overcast with thick dark clouds which threatened to extinguish all light from around me, but I could vaguely make out the maple leaves scattered on the floor next to my immobile body. Maple leaves… maple leaves? Wait… Where was I?

Was I dead?

As if on cue and to my absolute horror, the hunter descended directly above my powerless figure while I pointlessly willed my paralysed body to move, to run, to hide! The stifling pressure was enough to suppress any further movements from my body, and the next moment I was screaming in pain and anguish as my captor raised his right foot and slammed it down on my chest like a piston, crushing my ribs and forcing my ruptured vessels to spew blood out of my mouth.

Coughing and wheezing, I could do little more than to concentrate on my breathing. If I wasn’t already dead I was surely dying this time but something was amiss, something wasn’t right in this whole scene. As my body continued to cough out blood and what little life force it was left with, my mind had decided that the anomalies I had discovered were more worthy of my attention than my broken and soon to be lifeless body: Luton and Moria’s corpses were no longer present; the maple archway which I had blown up had miraculously reappeared; and my captor did not have a face!

“Alright, just a little bit then. Just enough to bring him around… half a glass will do just fine I think.” Luton’s faint sniggering was really starting to irritate me now. Let him do it this time, he will regret every drop of spilt water!

It was my fourth day since waking up at the Academy, and I had experienced a rude awakening twice since then, of course, courtesy of Luton. So as I lay on my left side pretending to be asleep and peering towards the door from underneath my folded arms which covered my face, I waited as Luton persuaded Moria to let him bathe me with a splash of water for the third time. Poor capasa, let’s see how he enjoys an exploding glass of water! I didn’t want to injure him of course, but he’d been taking a lot of concessions lately and it was time to put him in his place.